To find life, experience death
This year three friends have died and one was murdered. The day after Keith died this week, a friend told me of a member of his congregation who had given up his battle at the same time as Keith,...
View ArticleForget Osama, America, the threat is in Congress and the media
US President Barack Obama delivered his most important State of the Nation address this week. The man who seemed to respond to so many dreams is, as president, as emotionally stiff as the way he...
View ArticleLiving in the US: Snow, illusion and snow
Outside lies snow almost two metres deep. Snowfalls across the United States have hit record levels this month, with New York receiving an all-time record of 37 inches so far. That is a lot of...
View ArticleMe and Nelson Mandela
I love to cook and so there came a point during the struggle, where I gave up full-time journalism, became a full-time activist, part of the underground, and after long, endless meetings, would cook...
View ArticleHarm of a special kind
The worst evil in the world is not committed by the tyrant, the bigot or the thief; the gravest evil is that performed by those we should be able to trust, a person whose very title demands respect:...
View ArticleMy country, my tormentor
Love’s constant companion is heartbreak. And in every enterprise that is spurred by hope, we know that disappointment is shadowing us. Cynicism is an exercise in futility, it is fundamentally...
View ArticleA great American dies
To hear a South African you’d swear that we won liberation from apartheid oppression all by ourselves. It was us who suffered. We who conquered. And when it comes to today’s failures, then there are a...
View ArticleWhat do parents of rape victims think of crime stats?
Last year a close friend and neighbour who lived two houses away was murdered. As he lay bleeding to death on the floor of his bedroom after being hit on the back of his neck by a laptop — so hard that...
View ArticleMakana, Mandela, Marikana — endings and beginnings
Marikana is a name like Soweto, June 16. Like Sharpeville. It is a turning point. History will record it. Future generations will shudder. There are few South Africans whose hearts are not broken by...
View ArticleBoston’s loss of innocence
“Tonight I write the saddest lines”, so begins a poem by Pablo Neruda, in it he talks of a love lost, but for me, I mourn the lost innocence of the city I love. Boston gave me back my life. When I...
View ArticleGiving thanks for places and people: South African-American bobotie in New...
As I get older I become more emotional. My children scoff, “Pah! You’re kidding, you’ve always been emotional.” Okay, maybe they’re right. Thank God they’re now older than 16 when they were always...
View ArticleForget Osama, America, the threat is in Congress and the media
US President Barack Obama delivered his most important State of the Nation address this week. The man who seemed to respond to so many dreams is, as president, as emotionally stiff as the way he...
View ArticleLiving in the US: Snow, illusion and snow
Outside lies snow almost two metres deep. Snowfalls across the United States have hit record levels this month, with New York receiving an all-time record of 37 inches so far. That is a lot of...
View ArticleMe and Nelson Mandela
I love to cook and so there came a point during the struggle, where I gave up full-time journalism, became a full-time activist, part of the underground, and after long, endless meetings, would cook...
View ArticleHarm of a special kind
The worst evil in the world is not committed by the tyrant, the bigot or the thief; the gravest evil is that performed by those we should be able to trust, a person whose very title demands respect:...
View ArticleMy country, my tormentor
Love’s constant companion is heartbreak. And in every enterprise that is spurred by hope, we know that disappointment is shadowing us. Cynicism is an exercise in futility, it is fundamentally...
View ArticleA great American dies
To hear a South African you’d swear that we won liberation from apartheid oppression all by ourselves. It was us who suffered. We who conquered. And when it comes to today’s failures, then there are a...
View ArticleWhat do parents of rape victims think of crime stats?
Last year a close friend and neighbour who lived two houses away was murdered. As he lay bleeding to death on the floor of his bedroom after being hit on the back of his neck by a laptop — so hard that...
View ArticleMakana, Mandela, Marikana — endings and beginnings
Marikana is a name like Soweto, June 16. Like Sharpeville. It is a turning point. History will record it. Future generations will shudder. There are few South Africans whose hearts are not broken by...
View ArticleBoston’s loss of innocence
“Tonight I write the saddest lines”, so begins a poem by Pablo Neruda, in it he talks of a love lost, but for me, I mourn the lost innocence of the city I love. Boston gave me back my life. When I...
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